The short answer: buyers will demand more transparency; suppliers will give them just enough to continue finding more margin and feed the sales machine; and sourcing advisors will build a toolset to fit the right service for your business more automatically, with more just-in-time adjustment.

First, I would say that the commercial aspects of outsourcing are still the most stubbornly un-changeable ones. Just this year, I have reviewed a still-active contract written on Exodus Communications paper and multiple invoices based on racks and square feet in an age where everyone thinks of watts consumed as the primary / sole metric.

And 12 years in, RampRate’s mission has not changed much – there’s still billions in wasted IT spend through bad decisions; still too many people listening to salespeople instead of seeking out data, and a great terror of being exposed for one’s incompetence that leads buyers to run from their best sources of improvement.

That said, some things are starting to move. Cloud services, especially IaaS, brought unprecedented transparency to pricing. Not that there isn’t an opportunity to get off the price list if you’re big enough (or smart enough), or lack of clarity in the many customizations, or a pretty sorry state of tying pay to performance… well, perhaps, it’s not that big of a sea change – somewhat mirroring how much of the good old managed hosting paradigm still lives beneath the moniker of cloud. But it’s a start.
However, it’s clear that a buyer in 10-20 years will clearly want and expect more visibility into what they’re buying.